Does anyone know how the dog bros train on a weekly basis? The impression I get is the hard contact stuff happens a few times a year, but I'm curious if they do regular light contact sparring or what kind of training takes place.

I can give a little insight into how some of the clans train. NoHo, with which I have the most experience, trains every Saturday as a clan, but most of us train on our own as well. There's lots of good contact, light sparring happens every week, usually with the lighter sticks or padded sticks. However, we've come to a consensus that at least once a month, we're going to go Gathering level, injuries allowing.

When I was with the Hawaii clan, there was fighting every week. Full power, fighting size sticks (31"x1-1/4") and the typical minimal gear. Any one of those fights was a Gathering level fight. However, because for much of the time it ended up being just Dogzilla and I, near the end we both understood each other's game so well there were very few telling hits, lots of roofs/umbrella pick-offs and little grappling. Unless it rained, then the fights usually consisted of Dogzilla closing on me, crushing me to the ground and beating on me until he got tired.

Santa Fe, back when I trained with them (over a decade ago), it was basically fight, get critiqued by Salty, fight some more, get critiqued again, etc. It made for a very painful, but incredibly steep, learning curve and I unequivocally credit training with Salty as the single best influence on my fighting ability.

Feel free to ask any specifics, I'll answer as best I can. I'd also like to present a small rebuttal to the poster who said something along the lines of our fighting mentality would get us killed in a machete fight. First, I live in Los Angeles, and daily carry of a machete is a non-issue. Second, and it's been stated before, most of the fighters you see in a open Gathering are not Dog Brothers. Simulated blade fighting produces different tactics than stick fights, as best exemplified here (as usual, I'm the guy in yellow). Please understand, the Dog Brothers treat stick fights like stick fights, and simulated blade fights accordingly.

And to the OP, wherever you are in Europe, there are worthy clans to train with. Lonely has developed the European DB contingent masterfully, they produce magnificent fighters.

You are incorrect that 3-5 lbs is too little, especially for a beginner. 1-2 lbs is actually more common. The reason is that you're comparing them to conventional weights, where the weight is not swung and not at the end of a shaft.

Thank you very much for that info, too.
I'll then go on and buy me a pair.

And to the OP, wherever you are in Europe, there are worthy clans to train with. Lonely has developed the European DB contingent masterfully, they produce magnificent fighters.

Thank you very much. I will then contact Lonely as soon as I know my destination. I won't be able to train with him, given that he is at least a day's car ride away, but perhaps he has people in Germany that meet his standards.

Thank you very much. I will then contact Lonely as soon as I know my destination. I won't be able to train with him, given that he is at least a day's car ride away, but perhaps he has people in Germany that meet his standards.

If I were a days drive from someone like Lonely, Poi, Salty, Crafty.... I would be making that drive pretty regularly. But I'm a bit of a dogbrother nutrider. And just so you know there is a ton of material that the Dogs put out that you can watch and train almost immediately. I've got lots of their videos and online videos(you can only get them if you are a member).

There are some cool footwork drills in there that you can do on your own and will start getting you mobile. They are also pretty different from the footwork you learned in your JMA training. But not to take away from that. I use the triangles(FMA), the linear footwork(JMA), and circling footwork(boxing) interchangably. And it is my favorite part of the training.

Other than footwork drills, swinging sticks is the only other thing you can do on your own, and that hits a wall after you combine the stick swinging with the footwork, until you can get someone to swing back at you. But at least your conditioning will be good for when you do find someone to swing at you.

If I were a days drive from someone like Lonely, Poi, Salty, Crafty.... I would be making that drive pretty regularly. But I'm a bit of a dogbrother nutrider.

Actually, you are completely right - if anyway possible, I will do that; I just don't want to get deluded into making promises that I might not be able to keep. First, to find a good local club, wherever they send me, and then, focus to be less Bilbo and more Thorin again.

Nice. This seems just what I had been looking for! ...Though the other DVD sets, brrrrrrr, expensive...

But better that than to pay a WC instructor the same amount, and getting nothing from it...

Yeah, they are expensive, but what I did was get one a focus on it for a long time. Then get a new one an pay around with the stuff. RCSF1 series is really good basics. Getting fluid with those drills will give you a lot to work on. A lot of the stuff kind of over laps. So once you have the basics, you can jump to other stuff depending on what you are looking for.

Lonely dog does some good workouts and with the material in their series, you can see where the aplication of it is.

One of the first things I realized in sparring was no matter how hard I could swing the stick, if my legs were gassed out, I was at the mercy of the other player. So then I doubled my efforts to get my legs better conditioned.

There is some differences in the way the Dogs do it, vs other FMA systems, but take what you can use, and get rid of what you can't.

Longer answer: common gloves for stickfighting are hockey or lacrosse gloves, so if you can find a used pair you can get them cheap. DB matches usually lean towards a lighter glove, but for sparring in the beginning stages I recommend something more robust. Your hands will be targeted and hit, both on purpose and on accident, so if you're using rattan get some decent gloves. For padded sticks, lighter gloves are fine. Some of the guys fight with baseball batting gloves, which are not padded and just keeps the knuckles from cutting on the mask if you punch them. I wear a fairly robust glove at the gatherings because my hands are very important to me. The ones I wear look like this:
(green shirt)

note that my opponent and I both have pretty poofy gloves, being beginners and all.

That pic makes me recall another consideration: big gloves can/will throw off your game when grappling. In my old gloves, I did a bodylock takedown but wasn't able to get my arms free, because their bulkiness and the fact that they were strapped on made it so I couldn't slide my arms out. Therefore, when considering a larger hockey or lacrosse type gloves, I like to be able to pull them off at a moment's notice in case groundfighting starts. A fencing mask should also be easily removable for the same reasons.

The fencing mask should ideally be a 3 weapon rated fencing mask. In fencing terms, this means that its meant to withstand some abuse from the foil, epee and saber. The saber allows strikes with the edge so a saber fencing mask is designed to take both whacks and pokes.